


to everything there is a season

by polkadot



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Armada Boys, Beach Holidays, Breakfast, Fluff, M/M, Ten in Ten Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 07:05:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/pseuds/polkadot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Feli is not allowed to have hot sausages and coffee without putting clothes on, David muses about the seasons, and they have a race to see who can tweet Rafa congratulations for his USO win first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to everything there is a season

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Feli and Ferru's tweets to Rafa this morning. Which really were posted at exactly the same time.
> 
> Both of them are actually speaking Spanish, of course, but since I don't, everything is 'translated' into English. :)

“Feli,” David says.

The lump to his left gives no indication of having heard. Feli’s tumbled hair is all David can see, dark against the pillow in the faint morning light. The rest of him is hidden under the blankets, and distinctly Not Moving.

“Feli,” David says again, and gently nudges him in the side with his knee. “Let me up.”

For a moment, he thinks Feli still hasn’t heard, but then the lump makes a disgruntled snorfling sound, and the arm flung proprietorially over his stomach is withdrawn.

No longer anchored to the bed, David extricates himself from under the plush duvet (the movement making Feli burrow deeper into his pillows with more discontented noises) and pads barefoot out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. When he draws the curtains, the early morning sunlight streams across his face, and he closes his eyes for a moment, savouring the tang of the ocean air.

When Feli suggested they take a weekend break at the seashore, David had been a bit dubious. He feels like he’s had enough breaks to last him a good while; he’d rather be on a court putting in the sweat hours, preparing for the rest of the season. There isn’t much of it left, and he has to try to defend Bercy this year. (There isn’t much of his career left, for that matter, but he tries not to think about that. Even the youngest player is only one serious injury away from disaster, after all.)

But now, feeling the salt air on his face and listening to the sound of the birds wheeling in the golden sunshine, David can’t help feeling glad that Feli is so persuasive. After the disappointing taste his last US Open match left in his mouth – if only he hadn’t dropped those first two sets, if only he’d been able to win that fifth set – perhaps he _had_ needed a weekend away, a quiet weekend all to themselves.

He puts the coffeemaker on and starts eggs and sausages, humming a half-remembered tune as he works. He’s starving, and he knows Feli will be too, if he ever tears himself from his love affair with their cottage’s royally-comfortable bedclothes. They’d gone out for pizza last night, but that was a long time ago, and Feli had insisted that they rush home afterwards to be sure of catching the beginning of the final, so they hadn’t had time to stop at a shop for snacks. They’d stayed up half the night watching Rafael, and then there was the cardio they’d indulged in afterwards…

David finds himself smiling a little private smile at that particular memory. He turns off the stove and opens the cupboards, trying to figure out where Feli put the plates after he washed up yesterday morning.

“I smell sausages,” Feli says, from the archway.

David sets the plates down on the counter before turning. Feli looks as sleepy as he sounds, all long languid limbs and half-shuttered eyes. 

Feli’s eyes open a little wider. “And coffee,” he says, devoutly, beginning to cross the room. “This is why I love you. You make me coffee and sausages.”

David holds him off with the spoon he’s been using to cook with. “You’re not drinking hot coffee or eating sausages until you put clothes on,” he says, severely. “We don’t want to have to try to explain how you got burns in interesting places to either the local health service _or_ to the ATP.”

Feli grins at him, slow and dangerous. “I remember you liked me without clothes just fine last night,” he says, and moves closer, despite the threatening spoon.

“That was last night,” David says. “To everything there is a season,” he quotes, then adds, “And right now is breakfast season.”

Feli puts long fingers under his chin and tips it up. “Then I’ll play out of season,” he murmurs silkily, and leans down.

When they fall out of the kiss at last, Feli looks well-satisfied with himself, and David feels a bit scrambled, although in a good way. He raises the cooking spoon and swats Feli on the butt with it. “Go put clothes on,” he says, ignoring Feli’s yelp.

The spoon goes in the sink to be washed, the food is dished out on the plates with a new spoon, and David is just pouring cups of coffee when Feli reappears, properly dressed. They move to the outside table together, carrying the food and the cups into the morning sunshine and the brisk air. Feli shivers a little, and David smiles at him. “Glad I made you get dressed?” 

“Next time we come here,” Feli says, “I think we should do breakfast in bed.”

“You mean I should. And no, you’re entirely too spoiled already.”

Feli doesn’t look wounded. “You like spoiling me,” he says, airily, and David supposes he does.

They eat in silence for a minute or two. David looks out at the beach and thinks they’ll probably wait to go out until it’s a bit warmer; after they swim a bit, he’ll sit in his chair and read, and Feli will lie on his towel in the sunshine and occasionally demand David explain his book. Perhaps later they’ll go into town, wander together or do some shopping in the little boutiques along the main road. The only thing Feli likes better than shopping for himself is shopping for David. He puts David in too-tight designer jeans and fabrics that whisper over his skin, turns him this way and that, unbuttons a button here and adjusts a hang there until the man looking back at David from the mirror seems to hardly resemble himself. But behind the stranger in the mirror is Feli, hot-eyed, his hands resting on the stranger’s hips, and so maybe it’s them after all.

If this shopping trip is anything like the ones they’ve been on before, David wonders how they’re going to get all the luggage home.

He’s jerked out of his thoughts by Feli suddenly sitting up straight in his chair. “We’ve forgotten something!”

“What?” David says, setting his fork down. Usually he might suspect this of being a pickup line – because Feli flirts like most people breathe air - but it’s still rather early in the morning for that, and Feli’s face seems genuinely startled.

Instead of answering, Feli jumps up and darts back into the house. 

When he comes back a minute later, he’s holding both of their phones. He sets David’s down next to his plate. “We got so busy after Rafa won the match,” he says, and yes, there’s that wicked grin, “that we forgot to tweet him congratulations!”

“I texted him,” David tells him. “While you were still whooping and making faces at Novak. Before you tackled me.”

“Yes, well,” Feli says, “we have to tweet him too. Otherwise it’ll look really bad, like we don’t even care.”

David shrugs, and looks down at his phone. Before he can pull up the Twitter app, though, Feli’s hand comes down on his wrist. “What?”

Feli’s shaking his head. “Not yet! When I say go. Ready, set, go!”

Only Feli would make tweeting congratulations to Rafael into a speed race. David finds himself laughing even as his fingers fly over the keys. He’s not as fast as Feli, a champion texter, but Feli ends up with 146 characters and swears creatively as he tries frantically to eliminate a few. David laughs again, scans his own tweet, and presses “send”.

In the end, they can’t tell which one went through first, and both have the same timestamp. 

“Ah well,” David says, and sets his phone down next to his coffee cup.

Feli, who looks peevish from his frustrated competitive instinct, vengefully eats his last sausage.

David stands up and plucks his plate out from under his nose. “Come on, let’s go wash up.”

Feli picks up the coffee cups without a murmur, and together they wash the breakfast things. Afterwards, Feli loops his arms around David’s waist, resting his chin on David’s shoulder. 

David leans back into the embrace, thinking of seasons and years and holidays and battles.

“Do you ever wish you could be Rafa, just for a day?” Feli asks, after a long minute. “Feel what it must be like to have that massive brain, those unbelievable shots, that unshakeable drive? Make the entire tennis universe bow to your will?”

David considers the question. “No,” he says; then, feeling like he has to elaborate more than that, “If I was Rafael, I wouldn’t be me. He is better than I am, but I like being me.”

Feli laughs, and nuzzles his ear. “I like you being you too,” he says, and his hot breath makes David shiver.

He’d been thinking about the future while he was making breakfast, he remembers, about the limited time left to him. The seasons in his hourglass are flowing through his fingers now, and he knows there will come a day where his body will no longer be able to do the things he demands of it. But if he were Rafael, and four years younger, he wouldn’t have any stronger guarantees. Seasons come and seasons go, and all any man can do in this world is to live the days that are given to him.

“I’m glad you suggested this holiday,” he says, impulsively, and turns in Feli’s arms, leaning up to kiss him against the cupboard where they’re keeping the plates, the breeze from the open window rumpling their hair.

Feli's smile tastes like a strange mix of sausages and sunshine. His fingers twine into David's, and David laughs into the kiss, feeling suddenly jubilant.

Let the future fall where it will. He has the here and now.

**Author's Note:**

> Ferru was quoting the [well-known bit](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+3&version=KJV) from Ecclesiastes.
> 
> Ferru and Feli's tweets:
> 
>  


End file.
